I died a little, right then, when he said that.

Someone, a long time ago like before I was born probably, once said, “Times, they are a-changin’.”

This person was either buying a new watch, replacing the battery in an old watch, or just given to random outbursts of speaking the painfully obvious.

Also, they might have been Bob Dylan.

Whoever it was, I tip my hat to them, and secretly, I call them a Philosopher. (Unless that person is Bob Dylan; I don’t call him a Philosopher since his Oscar win).

My deepest wish is that Time had a NASDAQ code.  Because it is, I believe, the only thing on this earth that is consistently circular; that makes it a safe bet.  There’s nothing Time can’t change; there’s nothing Time doesn’t affect.

It’s like an oxymoron. (But don’t ask me how, not yet).

I mean, look — Time “waits for no man,” “heals all wounds”; is “of the essence,” is always “marching on”; is “money”; and if you stitch with it, you save nine people, or something like it.  I’d say that makes it quite similar to a daily miracle.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Time is where it’s at.

But, don’t be fooled; it doesn’t have ticker, or a stock profile…not through S&P, NASDAQ, NYSE… No, the symbol you’re thinking of refers to Time Warner.

And I wouldn’t invest in them.

It’s not all fun and games with Time, though. One thing I particularly dislike is when Time sneaks up on you. And does the unthinkable.

This has happened to me twice since last Sunday.

When I was growing up, it was just me, U.L., and your three basic TV channels. Four, if the weather was good in Meridian. I saw plenty of PBS, a soap opera or two (when I was sick and stayed home and Daisy would let me because Lord knows she couldn’t miss ”Loving” to save her life or fix me some soup). Once I saw half of an episode of ”The Tonight Show” starring Johnny Carson before U.L. woke up from the chair and realized I was still awake.  I was mostly addicted to ”Dr. Who,” to be honest, which U.L. didn’t understand. So, he didn’t interfere.  But, you get the point: aside from the annual Macy’s Day Parade and Miss America (if Mississippi made it to the Top 10), there wasn’t a lot of variety.

That’s my stock, so to speak. I come from the Time when all contact lenses were hard and dangerous, and you couldn’t get cable if the actual cable wasn’t long enough to reach your house. No lie.

I fully expected things to stay like that, to not change. I sort of counted on U.L.’s house not to find the 21st Century (or the 20th, for that matter) because Time stood still way out there on Route 5. And I liked it that way, just fine.

But, lo and behold, shocker of shockers, last week I went to visit U.L., and what should I spy on the eave of the carport but a small, concave-shaped disc. A “satellite,” I believe the young folk call it.

DSL. Broadband. The Works. The Whole Nine Yards (but better than the movie). 

I was shocked.

I ran into the house, decrying his betrayal of my childhood. He responded by admitting NOT that he was sorry, but that he was now, terribly and embarrassingly, addicted to FOX News.

I died a little bit, right then, when he said that.

As if it weren’t enough to discover that he’d finally gotten ”cable,” now that I’d moved away — the one thing I begged for as a child, the one thing that would have ensured my undying devotion and love to him when he got old (and I was contemplating a nursing home), the very access that I dreamed of, as a child, that would be my portal to Fraggle Rock and the dreamy Atreyu…why on earth would he want ”cable” now?  To torment me?

If that’s so, then, Well played, U.L., I thought. Well played. 

But, I had no socially acceptable way to respond to this obsession he now had with FOX News. 

I didn’t know what to do: rip out the cord and throw the box away?  Climb onto the roof and kick the heck out of the satellite dish? I was rather immobilized as I tried to find a safe and humorous way to diffuse the awkwardness of his admission in front of Amanda. (You know, she went to Wellesley).

He was laughing about it, though, as if that would throw us off. Please.

FOX News viewers have a scent. It smells like scorched truth, the next morning, right after the scab has first gelled.

Yuck, that was gross.

Anyway…so, yeah, he’s got cable now, and can watch just whatever he wants…which is apparently just FOX News…all the time.

Oh, and the second thing is I have a new job. Theatre Director, small community college (small in other places, also, unfortunately)…it’s not been the best week for me, getting my feet wet and re-learning the joys of a Necessary Paper Trail. I’m trusting that things will get better.

They have to…because, right now, I feel like I’m teaching junior high. And I really hate that feeling.  It’s so restrictive, isn’t it?  And many of the faculty are reminiscent of a Stepford Wife/Male Escort, and not from the right side of the railroad tracks, either.

On top of that, I have to drive fifty (50) miles each way.  (But, I’ll reserve that hatred for the Economy).

Sigh. The Time Sneak wasn’t the job, per se, but the unforeseen amounts of paperwork that was not mentioned during my interview a month ago…suspicious minds, indeed.

So, now, I’m sitting here in my office, and I want so much to say that I wish for a simpler, kinder, gentler Time, but I’m afraid that’d just mean sleeping.

And really long baths.

God, I love a bath. When I take a bath, Time stops. I don’t care what’s happening beyond that bathroom door; I slide into the tub (per my ritual of heating the sides of the tub before getting into it), pour myself a glass of — you know, let’s save my strange bathing rituals for another blog.

The point is: I can’t keep an hour from itself, but I can certainly waste one.

And I think that’s exactly what I’m about to do.

I’m going to slip out of my office, through the back door, and drive a full, fast hour home…to the only thing that loves my body, without comment…the tub.

The current time is 12:19 PM.

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